Ananta Press is delighted to announce Kiran Sandhu as an official Winner of the Ananta Press Sahitya Ratna Award for her book Customize Your Beauty, selected in the Non-Fiction (General) category.
This recognition celebrates a book that approaches beauty from a thoughtful, practical and highly personal perspective. Instead of asking readers to follow every new beauty trend, Kiran Sandhu encourages them to first understand themselves. This simple but meaningful philosophy forms the heart of Customize Your Beauty and gives the book its distinctive character.
The Ananta Press Sahitya Ratna Award recognizes authors and books that make a meaningful contribution to readers through originality, relevance, clarity of thought and the ability to create a lasting impact. Each selected work is considered for the value of its ideas, the quality of its message and its potential to connect with readers. Customize Your Beauty stood out because it does not treat beauty as a fixed formula. It teaches readers that personal care should begin with awareness and understanding.
Kiran Sandhu’s interest in beauty began when she was around thirteen or fourteen years old. Over the years, she developed her understanding through personal experience, observation, experimentation with home remedies and the use of commercially available beauty products. Her book brings together this accumulated knowledge in an accessible form, allowing readers to use it according to their own individual requirements.
One of the strongest qualities of Customize Your Beauty is its central message of knowing yourself before making beauty choices. The book asks readers to understand their skin type, facial features, eye characteristics, body shape and colouring. It then explains how this understanding can help them make better decisions about skincare, cosmetics, clothing, makeup and personal styling.
This approach gives readers greater independence. Instead of simply recommending products, the book encourages people to understand why a particular ingredient or product may be suitable for their skin. In a market filled with advertisements, trends and constantly changing products, this ability to make informed choices can be especially valuable.
The book also expands the meaning of beauty beyond skincare. Kiran Sandhu discusses how different body shapes can be complemented by different styles and cuts of clothing. The intention is not to encourage readers to feel uncomfortable about their bodies. Instead, it helps them understand their natural proportions and choose clothing that creates balance and confidence.
Similarly, the discussion of facial features helps readers understand how makeup can work with the natural structure of the face. The book considers face shape, eye shape and other individual characteristics while explaining how certain techniques may emphasize attractive features or create visual balance.
Colour selection is another useful part of the book. Readers are introduced to the idea of understanding their colouring and determining whether certain shades are more suitable for their natural appearance. This practical guidance connects beauty with personal styling and encourages readers to make more thoughtful choices about their clothes and overall presentation.
The inclusion of home remedies and beauty recipes adds another practical dimension. These sections provide readers with accessible options for self-care while continuing the book’s main principle that beauty routines should be selected according to personal needs.
The book also discusses weight management as part of an individual’s broader beauty and lifestyle journey. Importantly, the same principle of personalization continues here. Rather than presenting one fixed plan for every reader, the book encourages individuals to consider their own needs and create an approach suitable for themselves.
The award committee found the book’s overall philosophy particularly relevant. Its progression can be understood through four simple ideas: understand, customize, choose and apply. This turns beauty from passive trend-following into an informed and personal process.
Customize Your Beauty makes a valuable contribution to practical non-fiction because it attempts to give readers knowledge they can use in everyday life. It combines personal experience with guidance on skincare, cosmetics, makeup, clothing, colour selection and self-care. Its strength lies in helping readers understand that looking and feeling their best does not require copying another person’s routine.
The Ananta Press Sahitya Ratna Award proudly recognizes Kiran Sandhu for presenting this individualized approach to beauty and personal care in a reader-friendly manner. Her work encourages awareness, thoughtful decision-making and confidence in personal choices.
Ananta Press congratulates Kiran Sandhu on this achievement and wishes her continued success as an author. May Customize Your Beauty reach many more readers and continue encouraging them to understand themselves, make informed choices and develop a beauty routine that truly belongs to them.
Jury Feedback
Glenville Ashby
After reading Customize Your Beauty, I found its greatest strength to be the clear idea that beauty cannot be reduced to a single formula for everyone. Kiran Sandhu repeatedly encourages readers to understand themselves before choosing products, clothes or beauty routines. This makes the book practical because it gives the reader a method of thinking rather than simply presenting a list of recommendations. I especially appreciated the attention given to skin type, facial structure, body shape and personal colouring. These subjects help readers understand why something that works beautifully for one person may not produce the same result for another. The author’s long personal interest in beauty can be felt throughout the book. Her experience gives the writing a personal and approachable quality. The book can be useful for readers who feel confused by changing beauty trends because it brings the focus back to individual needs. Overall, I found it informative, accessible and strongly connected to everyday life.
Kavya Pandey
Customize Your Beauty offers a refreshing way of discussing personal beauty because it begins with understanding rather than correction. I liked the fact that the book does not simply tell readers what they should buy. Instead, Kiran Sandhu explains why it is important to understand skin type, ingredients and personal requirements before selecting cosmetic products. This gives the reader greater confidence and independence while making choices. Another useful feature is that the book connects skincare with makeup, clothing, body shape and colour selection. As a result, beauty is presented as a complete subject rather than something limited to creams or cosmetics. The home remedies and practical suggestions also make the book approachable for readers who prefer simple methods of self-care. I found the central principle of knowing yourself first especially meaningful. It gives the book a clear direction from beginning to end. In my view, the book succeeds in making beauty information easier to understand while encouraging readers to develop routines that suit them personally.
Apeksha Gupta
What interested me most while reading Customize Your Beauty was the author’s focus on personal awareness. There are many beauty products and trends available today, and it can be difficult for readers to decide what is suitable for them. Kiran Sandhu addresses this confusion by encouraging readers to first understand their own features and requirements. The sections dealing with skin type and cosmetic ingredients are particularly useful because they encourage more informed product selection. I also liked the way the author extends customization to body shape and clothing. The examples make readers think about how different styles can work differently on different body structures. The discussion of face shape, eyes and makeup follows the same practical method. This consistency gives the book a strong structure and a clear message. The book does not ask the reader to become someone else. It encourages better understanding of one’s existing features. This positive and practical approach makes the book relevant for people who want simple guidance without being overwhelmed by complicated beauty information.
Kavita Kaushik
I found Customize Your Beauty to be a thoughtful and useful guide because it treats beauty as something personal rather than something determined entirely by fashion. The book encourages readers to stop copying every popular trend and instead ask whether a product, colour, style or routine is actually suitable for them. I believe this is an important message, particularly at a time when people are constantly exposed to new beauty products and changing trends. Kiran Sandhu’s discussion of skin types, facial features, body shapes and colours gives readers several practical starting points for understanding their appearance. I also appreciated the inclusion of home-based beauty remedies because they add an accessible and traditional dimension to the book. The author’s years of personal interest and experimentation are reflected in the variety of areas covered. Her approach remains simple and easy to follow. For me, the book’s real value lies in teaching readers how to make individual choices rather than simply giving them instructions to follow without understanding their purpose.
Neel Preet
The title Customize Your Beauty accurately represents the central idea of this book. While reading it, I noticed that Kiran Sandhu consistently returns to the importance of individual requirements. Whether she is discussing skincare, makeup, clothing, colour or weight management, the reader is encouraged to avoid blindly copying another person’s routine. This creates continuity across the different subjects covered in the book. I particularly liked the idea that readers should understand what their skin requires before deciding which products or ingredients to use. This is a practical habit that can help people become more thoughtful consumers. The sections on body shape and suitable clothing also broaden the scope of the book and make it more than a skincare guide. The author looks at beauty as a combination of care, understanding, presentation and individual choice. Her writing comes from a long personal engagement with beauty and experimentation, which gives the book a relatable quality. I believe readers looking for straightforward and personalized beauty guidance will find useful ideas throughout this work.
Deepak Seth
Customize Your Beauty impressed me because its message is practical and easy to understand. The book is built around the belief that the first step in beauty care is understanding your own needs. This principle appears in discussions about skin, cosmetic ingredients, facial features, body shape, colour selection and lifestyle choices. I found this approach more useful than simply recommending popular products because it teaches readers to think before making a purchase or following a trend. Kiran Sandhu has also included ideas from her personal experience with home remedies and commercial cosmetics, which gives the book a broad and approachable character. The discussion of clothing and body shape is useful because it shows that personal appearance depends on more than skincare alone. Similarly, the sections on makeup and facial structure help readers see how techniques can be adapted rather than copied. The overall message is positive and practical. Readers are encouraged to understand themselves and then create choices that suit their individual features, preferences and goals.